The Guardian
Chapter 4

Garza rubbed his burning eyes with his index and middle fingers, hoping like hell it would improve his view.

Solid nope. The Intelligence office was still there, it was still well past quitting time, and he was still BFFs with Jack Shit as far as this Bianchi case was concerned.

“Hot tip. If Sinclair catches you here this late on a Friday, he won’t be shy about kicking you out.”

At the sound of Isabella’s voice, Garza had to crack the closest thing he had to a smile. “You’re here,” he pointed out, dodging the fact that she wasn’t wrong about their boss, Sergeant Sam Sinclair, and how closely he minded his detectives’ burnout levels.

“I’m back,” she corrected. “And only because pregnancy brain made me leave my cell phone in my desk, and my husband refuses to let me go without it in case I pop early. Me, I dare to dream, because I swear this kid already weighs fifteen pounds. But it would suck to go into labor a month ahead of schedule and not have my cell on me, so I let him drive me back here to get it.” Grinning, she crossed the office, tugging her desk drawer open before adding, “What’s your excuse?”

Ah, hell. He should’ve known she wouldn’t let him off the hook. “Still working this Bianchi thing.”

Isabella’s brows lifted. “And how’s that’s going for you?”

“Okay,” Garza said, but damn, her expression alone made him redirect. “For a cold case, anyway.”

“So, you’ve got bupk!ss.”

“Pretty much,” he agreed. After ten hours, the best he’d come up with was that the Bianchis had been doing a whole lot of financial and commercial investing (not illegal) and purchasing an equal number of luxury assets (also not illegal, although definitely extravagant). As far as Garza could tell, all of it was entirely legit, and without a boatload of warrants he probably wouldn’t get and a fleet of forensic accountants the department couldn’t afford or justify, he had a whole lot of nothing.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” she said, tapping out a quick text, presumably to Kellan, before tucking her phone into the back pocket of her jeans. “We had a hell of a time getting anywhere with that case when it was fresh. Nicky Bianchi’s slicker than an oil spill.”

Garza’s frustration kicked him in the shins. “Yeah, but he’s also probably guilty of about fifty different crimes. These files have the perfect makings of a huge money laundering operation.”

“They do,” Isabella agreed, and Garza let go of a harsh exhale.

“This particular trail might’ve gone cold, but it’s highly doubtful Nicky turned into a choir boy just because his brother went to prison. If he’s breaking the law, someone needs to take him down.”

“Can I give you a piece of unsolicited advice?”

Time to proceed with care. “Aren’t you going to even if I say no?”

Surprisingly, Isabella laughed. “I might.”

“By all means, then.”

Notsurprisingly, she got right to the point. “Everyone on the team knows you’ve got a killer work ethic. That’s not a bad thing,” she added, probably because she was a good enough detective to realize he’d been about to argue. “But don’t work so much that it’s the only thing you do. You don’t have to be Superman, Garza.”

“Comic book heroes aren’t really my thing,” he said, because it was better than the no his brain was pumping out. “I just want to be a good cop.”

“Sinclair doesn’t usually let crappy cops on the team, but even more importantly, there’s more to life than being a good cop. Trust me. I had to replace out the hard way.”

Garza didn’t respond, mostly because he couldn’t do so without contradicting or offending her. But he’d done this particular dance with so many people, so many times, that it was starting to wear thin. He didn’t need all that extra stuff. Even if he did want a long-tern relationship—which he didn’t, thanks—no woman alive would understand the brand of devotion he had to his job. It was never gonna happen.

“You think I’m full of shit, don’t you?” Isabella asked at his silence, and okay, he couldn’t help it. He barked out a laugh.

“Not necessarily,” he said, aiming at diplomacy. “I get what you’re saying, and I’m glad it works for you. But for me, there’s this”—he gestured to the empty office—“and this”—then the case files scattered over his desk—“and I’m good with that.”

For a beat, Isabella said nothing. Then, “I thought so once, too. Just do me a favor? Try not to fight it so hard if you need to change your mind.”

This was an easy enough concession. He hadn’t changed his mind in the eleven years he’d been a cop. He sure as shit wasn’t going to do it now. “You got it.”

“Have fun with your impossible case,” she said with a grin.

Before Garza could tell her he’d been handcrafted for impossible cases, his cell phone rang. “What the—” Camila’s name popped up on the screen, accompanied by her smiling face. “My little sister,” he said apologetically, which Isabella waved off.

“Try not to stay too late,” she said, heading to the door as Garza nodded and tapped the icon to pick up the call.

“Hey, Camila. What’s…wait, slow down.” His spine was rigid against the back of his chair in an instant at the panicked pitch of his sister’s voice, moving too fast for him to discern actual words. “I can’t understand you.”

Camila slowed down, but just barely. “I said, I need you to meet me at Remington Memorial as fast as you can. Delia was in some kind of accident. Mugged or attacked or something.”

“Neither of those things is an accident,” Garza pointed out, and Camila let a string of rapid-fire curse words fly in Spanish.

“Now is not the time to split hairs! She’s my best friend, Matteo. Practically a sister, and someone hurt her.”

A pang came out of left field to nail Garza directly in the solar plexus. He hadn’t meant to be unfeeling, but for Chrissake, he was a cop. Examining the facts was what he did. “Sorry,” he grunted. “Do you know if EMS called a uniform in?”

“No. I got a call from one of the nurses in the emergency department, but all he said was that she’d been brought in by ambulance and she’d named me as her contact person. Her father is in Puerto Rico,” Camila added, switching gears faster than a Maserati on a straightaway. “Oh, my God, what if she’s really hurt?”

“She’s not,” he said, partly in an effort to calm his sister and partly because it was true. “Delia named you as her contact person and gave up your phone number. That means she was conscious and alert.”

Camila’s pause told him he’d hit the mark. At least, for a second. “She could still be hurt. They took her to the hospital. How fast can you get there? We need to replace who did this to her so I can kill him.”

“Camila,” he started. Chances were pretty high there was already a patrol cop, maybe even two, doing their due diligence on this, and he hadn’t handled a run-of-the-mill mugging since he’d been a patrol cop himself. But the quirky blonde really was like a sister to Camila, and even though Garza hadn’t seen her in, Christ, what had to be years now, he realized Camila wasn’t going to let him leave this to a uniform. Plus, being a good cop was a no exceptions kind of thing, even when it was a pain in the a*ss.

“Okay.” He shut the file on his desk. Yeah, he wanted to break the Bianchi case, and yeah, he was still going to put all of his energy into doing exactly that. But the thing was already a f*****g Popsicle. One more night wouldn’t hurt.

“I’ll meet you outside the ED in fifteen minutes. And Camila? Don’t speed. I don’t want to have to worry about you and Delia.”

It would be the only thing that would make this night worse.

Delia wasninety-two-point-six percent sure she was dreaming. It was the best explanation she could muster for how ridiculously handsome the doctor standing over her was.

The back of her head throbbed as if her cranium had turned into a mosh pit, and okaaaay, she wasn’t dreaming.

“Good news, Ms. Sutton.” The doctor—Dr. Drake, he’d said when she’d been delivered to the emergency department with a whole lot more fanfare than she’d thought necessary for a thump to the head—stood in her line of vision and smiled. “Your neck and spine look great. We can get rid of this C-collar now.”

“I think a more apt name for it would be ‘torture device’,” Delia grumbled, although she couldn’t mask her happiness over getting rid of the thing.

Dr. Drake’s gloved fingers worked some crazy voodoo on the straps of the torture device (C-collar, her a*ss). “That wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that. Better?”

Delia got partway through her nod before realizing it was a shitastic idea. Ow. “Ugh, yes. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Dr. Drake adjusted the back of her gurney, allowing her to sit upright. “Your X-rays show no damage to your skull, which is more good news, but there’s some pretty substantial swelling at the site of your injury and you’ve got some contusions on your neck and shoulder that’ll probably feel tender for a few days. I’d feel better if we kept you for a little while longer to be absolutely sure you don’t have a concussion.”

Delia fought the g***n in her chest and lost. “My heads feels fine.” To offset the lie, she rambled, “Look, I can even recite the prime numbers in order for you, if you want. Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen—”

“You know all of them?” Dr. Drake’s dark brows shot upward.

“Well, yes,” Delia admitted, and huh, most people probably did replace that weird. “That’s just what I do. Numbers are…yes.”

“Impressive. I’m going to go ahead and call that alert and responsive. Quick re-check of your pupils, here.” Pulling out the small flashlight he’d used in his earlier examination, he leaned in to repeat the process. He really was good-looking, objectively speaking. Maybe not quite rough enough around the edges or strong/silent enough to make her belly flip, but still not bad. Now that he was closer, though, she could see just a hint of weary shadows smudged beneath his kind eyes.

“You look a little tired,” Delia said, and ugh, nice to know a whack on the head wasn’t going to keep her filter-free mouth from doing its thing. “No offense,” she added lamely.

Dr. Drake’s laugh surprised her. “None taken. My wife and I have a six-month-old daughter who decided now would be a good time to get four teeth all at once. But I wouldn’t trade her for all the sleep in the world.” He moved through a few more steps of his exam before adding, “And I’m not too tired to let you know that despite this nasty bump on the head, you’re going to make a full recovery. You’ll need to rest for a few days, though.”

“Do you have any news about my bag?” Delia asked. Everything had been such a blur after the man had hit her—don’t think about it, don’t think about it—that she barely remembered the good Samaritan who had found her on the sidewalk and called nine-one-one or the ambulance ride to the hospital. But her bag was definitely gone, her laptop and the flash drive with it. Delia needed to get those things back before Peyton figured out she had discovered the new discrepancies, and definitely before she realized Delia had downloaded that encrypted file onto a flash drive.

Dr. Drake’s smile was all apology. “I’m sorry, I don’t. But now that I’m sure you’re okay, you can talk to the police if you feel up to it. There’s a detective waiting outside. Your friend is also here. One of our nurses managed to track her down for you.”

God, Camila was probably freaking out. But the paramedics had asked who to call, and Delia had been too dazed to realize she probably should’ve said she’d be fine on her own. “Thanks.”

“I’ll show them in. And if you need anything else, just use the call button.”

Delia slumped against the gurney, feeling like a party balloon two days post-bash. How stupid had she been to shove everything into her laptop bag? Her wallet, her license, her credit cards, even the moonstone pendant her father had given her for her birthday a few years ago that she held whenever she needed to quiet her chaotic mind, all of it was gone. The only saving grace in this whole mess was that her laptop required her keycard in order to get past the firewall, and she’d slid it into her pocket along with her keys on her way out of the building.

“Oh, my God! Delia! Are you okay?” Camila came rushing into the exam room, her dark eyes fraught with concern. “What happened? What did the doctor say?”

“I’m fine. I was mugged, I guess, and the guy hit me on the back of the head. Dr. Drake said I might have a teeny concussion, but I’ll be good as new in a couple of days,” Delia answered, in order. The free-floating dread she’d felt ever since she’d come to on the sidewalk doubled, dominating her chest. “The mugger took my bag, and my work laptop was in it. I need to talk to…”

The rest of her sentence died in her throat.

Matteo Garza stood in the doorway, his stare dark and unreadable and his beautiful shoulders strung bowstring tight, and she took it back.

There was no saving grace in this scenario.

“You called your brother?” Delia blurted, her temples throbbing in time with her quickening pulse. But it wasn’t her fault that Matteo had grown impossibly hotter than the last time she’d seen him. Someone should really tell him that stockpiling muscles like that was just plain rude. Trapezius, deltoids, pectoralis major. Don’t even get her started on the way his biceps brachii swelled beneath the sleeves of his dark gray T-shirt like they owned the place.

Thankfully, Camila was too distracted by the whole mugging/possible concussion thing to notice the flush that had to be flagging across Delia’s face. “Of course I called him, mija. What, you think I’m going to let some random patrol cop handle this? You could have been killed.”

“I’d like to remind you that I was a random patrol cop once,” Matteo said, his voice low and gruff and sexy enough to make Delia unspeakably warm. “And the vast majority of muggings don’t end in murder.”

While the statistic wasn’t precise, it still comforted Delia in a weird, fact-based sort of way.

Camila? Not so much. “Don’t you need to take Delia’s statement?” she asked pointedly.

The only thing Matteo moved was his eyes, pinning Delia into place with his stare. “Only if she wants to make one.”

Delia nearly balked. But her laptop was gone, the flash drive and a half dozen other items she desperately wanted back along with it. If she had any hope of recovering them, she had to make a statement now. Even if it was to Detective McMuscles.

“I do.”

Matteo lifted his chin once in acknowledgment, making Delia notice how his neatly kept goatee framed his mouth with something bordering on perfection, and okay, time to focus.

Prime numbers. And go. Two, three, five, seven, eleven…

“Can you tell me what happened?” Matteo asked, diving in headfirst. The open-ended question made Delia blink, but she was nothing if not a big fan of the facts.

“I was leaving work at a few minutes before eight. I know what time it was because I remember being surprised it was dark out, so I looked. I get a little lost in my work sometimes. Anyway, I put my purse inside my laptop bag, but kept my keys and keycard in my pocket for easy access. I’ve seen on Dateline that it’s smarter—less fumbling around to make a person vulnerable to an attack. Not that it worked in my case, I guess.”

She paused. Matteo said nothing, his arms by his side and his RPD badge clipped onto his belt at his h*p, glinting in the harsh fluorescent lights. Delia wondered briefly if she should wait for him to start writing things down, but he seemed to be waiting for her to keep talking, so she forced a deep breath past the knot in her throat and continued.

“I was walking to the parking garage two blocks from the building when I heard footsteps behind me. Heavier than mine. Faster.” They echoed in her memory for just a beat, making her pulse skitter. Facts. Facts. Just stick with the facts.

Of course, her stupid amygdala had to go all fear response and make her voice waver. “A man grabbed me from behind. He covered my mouth with one hand and dragged me into the alley between Ninth Street and Sycamore.”

“Did he have a weapon?” Matteo asked quietly.

God, she’d been scared enough without having thought of that. “I didn’t see one.”

“Did you get a look at him?”

“No.”

“A glimpse, maybe?” he tried again. “Out of the corner of your eye.”

“No.” She’d tried no less than fifty times to come up with even a small detail other than the way her fear had frozen her so completely, but she couldn’t.

But if Matteo heard her answer, he didn’t show it. “Can you remember any details about the man at all? Tall, short, fat, thin? Anything like that?”

“No,” Delia repeated. She’d just said—twice, actually—that she hadn’t seen the man, for God’s sake. Wasn’t Matteo listening? “He was behind me the whole time, and he never spoke.”

A beat of silence passed, then another, and fine. Guess she’d keep going. “We didn’t get very far into the alley before the man stopped. A few steps. Maybe six,” Delia clarified before he could ask her to remember the details more precisely. “I tried not to let him take me anywhere.”

“More Dateline?” Matteo deadpanned, and she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Yes, actually. I knew my chances of getting away were better if I stayed on the street, but the man was really strong and I couldn’t get any leverage.”

Matteo’s inky brows lifted. “So, you do remember something about him, then.”

“What?”

“You just said he was strong and you tried to get leverage,” Matteo pointed out. “Was he taller than you?”

Frustration filled Delia’s chest, bleeding over into her voice. “I told you, I didn’t see him.”

“Matteo,” Camila warned, but he was completely undaunted in reply.

“I’m not asking if you saw him. I’m asking what he felt like, behind you. Take a minute and really think.”

Delia wanted to be pissed at this all-business version of Matteo. But she was too busy being pissed at the universe that what he’d just said made sense, so even though it made her heart race, she did what he’d demanded.

“The man wrapped his right arm around my chest and held his hand over my mouth. His arm pinned mine into place, squeezing really hard, so…yes, he was muscular. And he was taller than me by a good six inches. I could feel his breath on my temple.”

“You’re about five-six, right?” Matteo asked, and Delia blinked. But of course he hadn’t remembered so much as made a quick observation of fact. For Pete’s sake, he was a detective. He could probably eyeball stuff like that in his sleep.

“Yes, but I was wearing heels,” she said. “So call it five-nine.”

Matteo made a noise that might’ve been approval, but God, it was hard to tell. “Okay. The man took you six steps into the alley. Then what happened?”

“As soon as he dragged me far enough away from the street, he shoved me forward and took my laptop bag. It was over my left shoulder,” Delia added. “I tried to turn around so I could run, but he hit me. After that, things are a little fuzzy. The next thing I remember is a woman beside me on the sidewalk saying she called nine-one-one.”

“Alright. Is there anything else you can think of? Any other detail you can tell me, even if it’s small?”

Delia opened her mouth, fully prepared to tell him why she needed her bag back so badly. Her phone, her credit cards, her personal items—it would be a monumental pain, but she could replace them. Her laptop and that flash drive? Those held the account activity and the encrypted file she’d wanted to show Kent. They were the proof that something weird was going on at Cromwell A&M.

The only proof that something weird was going on at Cromwell A&M, and damn it, this was what she got for rocking the boat. She’d just been catapulted right back to square one. No evidence. No proof. No facts to rely on whatsoever.

And that meant she had no choice but to look at Matteo and say, “No. That’s everything.”